Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics

Chapter 9: AT THE VOICE OF A BIRD Consurgent ad vocem volucris.

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About This Book

A compact lyric sequence set amid tidal marshes and meadowland, the poems use recurring images of low tide, wind, flowers, birds, and seasonal light to explore memory, longing, and the passage of time. Brief, sensory pieces alternate personal yearning and elegiac loss with attentive natural description, tying human feeling to the rhythms of the landscape. The tone ranges from wistful nostalgia to quiet acceptance, repeatedly returning to motifs of spring renewal and vanished presences. Together the lyrics form a tightly keyed meditation that blends elegy and buoyant natural observation into a cohesive reflection on recollection and renewal.

AT THE VOICE OF A BIRD

Consurgent ad vocem volucris.

Call to me, thrush,
When night grows dim,
When dreams unform
And death is far!

When hoar dews flush
On dawn's rathe brim,
Wake me to hear
Thy wildwood charm,

As a lone rush
Astir in the slim
White stream where sheer
Blue mornings are.

Stir the keen hush
On twilight's rim
When my own star
Is white and clear.

Fly low to brush
Mine eyelids grim,
Where sleep and storm
Will set their bar;

For God shall crush
Spring balm for him,
Stark on his bier
Past fault or harm,

Who once, as flush
Of day might skim
The dusk, afar
In sleep shall hear

Thy song's cool rush
With joy rebrim
The world, and calm
The deep with cheer.

Then, Heartsease, hush!
If sense grow dim,
Desire shall steer
Us home from far.